This goal can be achieved through better use of raw materials, better and safer knowledge about materials in different environments and more effective reuse- and recycling systems based on safer methods for quality evaluations of materials.
Recycled plastics
Two conditions should be fulfilled to speed up the usage of recycled plastics:
- A well-functioning certification system for classification and labelling of plastic products for waste treatment.
- A possibility to analyse all recycled plastics to be able to determine composition, purity and degree of degradation in order to ease sorting into usable fractions.
To facilitate the recycling should it be considered not to mix different polymeric materials when designing products.
How durable is the material?
The ability to predict lifetime for freshly produced as well as recycled materials is a central part of the sustainable materials concept. Determination of long term properties demands an overall view including detailed knowledge of materials, knowledge and experience of accelerated aging tests and advanced methods of analysis (for instance spectroscopical, thermal, chromatographic and mechanical methods of analysis). We can perform life cycle analysis of materials to assess the environmental benefits of recycling.
We also offer methods for simulating repeated processing and usage of materials to investigate how many ”lives” a material can live.
European standards
We can also characterise and test polymeric waste according to the coming European standards like for instance
- prEN 15344 - Recycled Plastics – Characterisation of PE
- prEN 15345 - Characterisation of PP
- prEN 15346 - Characterisation of PVC
- prEN 15347 - Characterisation of plastic wastes, among others.